Tag: Visual Culture

How tourism is deeply implicated in the antagonistic global structures that lead to war.

August 9, 2016

BY DEBBIE LISLESchool of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast After the emergence of organized mass tourism in the mid-19th century, billions of people have indulged their desires to visit cultures, landscapes, and experiences different from their own. No place on the planet is immune to the tourist gaze: alongside familiar visits … More How tourism is deeply implicated in the antagonistic global structures that lead to war.

Of walls and robots: The future of immigration

June 30, 2016

BY CURTIS MAREZProfessor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego Even before Donald Trump promised to build one, U.S. popular culture was preoccupied with walls—most famously the Wall in Game of Thrones that protects the Seven Kingdoms from the wildlings. Contemporary depictions of zombies are set amid fences and fortifications that recall … More Of walls and robots: The future of immigration

The 1939–40 New York World’s Fair publicly launched the first idea of the television and what it can do.

March 17, 2016

This publicity photograph from RCA emphasizes the wealth and prestige of the first television viewers posed in front of the TRK-12 RCA receiver.Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.  BY DANIELLE SHAPIRO Today, we take television for granted. It is everywhere, in different sizes and shapes, in our pockets and our living room walls. It is … More The 1939–40 New York World’s Fair publicly launched the first idea of the television and what it can do.

Mourning what matters: On David Bowie and Laquan McDonald.

January 21, 2016

BY MARGARET SCHWARTZAssistant professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University It seems everyone I know—and I mostly know a lot of aging, white, GenX hipsters—spent January 10th “mourning” David Bowie. I put it in quotes because I’m not sure we know what mourning really is. Or because what we did the day the … More Mourning what matters: On David Bowie and Laquan McDonald.

How early aviation inspired American utopianism

February 27, 2015

Frank Paul, “Flying Man,” on the cover of Amazing Stories 3, no. 5 (August 1928). BY ADNAN MORSHEDAssociate professor of architecture and architectural history at the Catholic University of America A hundred years have passed since the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service. In Florida, on January 1, 1914, a Benoist XIV airboat flew from … More How early aviation inspired American utopianism

The effect of Civil Rights photobooks in transforming the social consciousness of young people

February 11, 2015

Children sit together on a tree limb in an uncredited Seventh-Day Adventist image. From Louis B. Reynolds and Charles L. Paddock, Little Journeys into Storyland: Stories That Will Live and Lift (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1947). BY KATHARINE CAPSHAWAssociate professor of English at the University of Connecticut 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting … More The effect of Civil Rights photobooks in transforming the social consciousness of young people

Where do cultures go when they die? The story of Codfish, the Indian, and the phonograph.

October 22, 2014

When the Edison phonograph was first made in the 1890s, people used it torecord their own voices. It later became one of the first commercially producedmachines when it was used to play music. It worked by vibrating the stylus up and downwhile moving across the wax cylinder (Hill & Dale method).Image credit: Museum of Technology. … More Where do cultures go when they die? The story of Codfish, the Indian, and the phonograph.

Who cares if you look? Participatory art and the act of interpretation. (Part III of III)

March 19, 2014

Portrait of Tristan Tzara, 1927. Participatory aestheticsloom large in Tzara’s infamous “Dada Poem” from the “1918 Manifesto.” Part IPart II—BY TODD CRONANEmory University Consider, finally, the case of Dada more generally. Tristan Tzara, for instance, another presumed progenitor of participatory aesthetics, in his 1916 “Note for the Bourgeois” describes “a poem based on new principles.” … More Who cares if you look? Participatory art and the act of interpretation. (Part III of III)

Who cares if you look? On the artist and the spectator. (Part II of III)

March 19, 2014

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, Marcel Duchamp.Duchamp famously declared that the artist decided what was art, not the public. BY TODD CRONANEmory University <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; … More Who cares if you look? On the artist and the spectator. (Part II of III)

Who cares if you look? On internal and external relationships with art. (Part I of III)

March 19, 2014

Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership. —Lawrence Weiner, “Declaration of Intent” (1968) Shepard Fairey’s OBEY sticker craze captures the core terms of any viewer-driven aesthetic. BY TODD CRONANEmory University “The OBEY sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity … More Who cares if you look? On internal and external relationships with art. (Part I of III)